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Onion Flavour

A thick onion gravy made by cooking onions with salt, flour, butter, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Onion Flavour

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the thin outer film from the onions.

Cook the onions

  1. Place the onions in a saucepan with salt, flour, and butter.

  2. Cover the saucepan and cook over low heat for 2 hours, stirring occasionally.

  3. Add a little water to create a rich gravy.

Use

  1. Use the gravy to fry potatoes or flavor other dishes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Onions
Provide the bulk of the sweet, savory flavor as they slowly break down.
Flour
Thickens the liquid released by the onions so the gravy becomes smooth and body-rich.
Butter or dripping
Adds fat that carries flavor and gives the gravy a rich mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Cook covered over low heat for 2 hours, stirring occasionally. Low, gentle heat lets the onions soften and release their sugars slowly, so they caramelize without scorching. Covering traps moisture so the onions braise, and occasional stirring keeps the flour from clumping or burning on the pan bottom.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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